Tricking is an art form that requires discipline, strength, and flexibility. It’s a combination of stunts, martial arts moves, dance steps, and acrobatics that has grown in popularity over the past decade. This guide will give you a basic understanding of the fundamentals of tricking and how to start your journey to becoming a high-flying master of kicks! We’ll cover the essential knowledge, skills, and conditioning needed to take your tricks to the next level.
What is Tricking?
Tricking is an acrobatic martial arts style that combines elements of gymnastics, breakdancing, and traditional martial arts. High-flying kicks, flips, and spins characterize it. Tricking is all about creating art through movement and expressing yourself in ways you couldn’t do before. It can involve a variety of techniques such as backflips, 540s, aerial cartwheels, variants on axe kicks or spin-kicks, and more. Trickers also perform various combinations with moves like 360s, 540s, cork screws, and doubles that are designed to create beautiful sequences of movements that have never been seen before. Furthermore, you can incorporate different objects into your tricks, such as a chair or table, to add another difficulty level. While it’s not necessary to use objects for tricking, these additions help bring creativity to the style, which makes it unique from other forms of martial arts.
Benefits of Tricking
Tricking is an acrobatic art form combining martial arts, gymnastics, and dance elements. Those who practice this art form can benefit from improved flexibility, strength, coordination, and increased confidence. It also helps to develop mental focus and discipline.
Physical fitness is perhaps the most obvious benefit of tricking. Tricking requires athleticism and strength to perform aerial kicks and flips with ease while incorporating a variety of spins and turns into your routine. Improved physical endurance is another benefit, as it allows you to be more creative with your tricks while expanding the range of movements you are able to execute in a single routine.
Mental benefits include enhanced concentration skills, self-discipline, creativity, problem-solving abilities, and perseverance when faced with obstacles or challenges in learning new tricks. Additionally, mastering difficult moves will help boost one’s confidence when performing in front of an audience or taking part in competitions. Through trial and error, you will learn how to think outside the box when facing a seemingly impossible move which can be applied to other aspects of life too!
Safety Tips for Tricking
1. Proper warm-up: Tricking involves powerful and explosive jumps, flips, and kicks that can be dangerous if not done properly. To avoid any injuries while performing tricks, it is essential to begin with, a proper warm-up that includes stretching and light cardio exercises such as jumping jacks, running in place and high knees. This helps to increase blood flow throughout the body and prepare your muscles for heavier movements.
2. Landing techniques: It is important to practice proper landing techniques when doing tricks. Make sure you know how to absorb the impact of your landings so as not to injure yourself upon landing from a jump or kick. Bend your knees when you land from tricks such as backflips or sidekicks so that the force of the landing does not strain your ankles or knees too much.
3. Equipment: As with any other physical activity, wearing protective gear is important when tricking; this includes knee pads, elbow pads, wrist guards, etc., which protect against cuts and scrapes caused by hard landings on surfaces like concrete floors or grass fields. Additionally, using spring mats can help reduce the force of a fall during more advanced tricks, such as backflips or front flips, which require being upside down at some point in time during the tricking session.
The Basics of Kicks
Kicks are an integral part of the art of tricking. They require good balance, flexibility, and strength in order to execute cleanly and safely. To get started with kicks, it’s important to understand the anatomy of a kick: the beginning setup, the wind-up momentum, and the release. Once you have a handle on this basic kicking structure, you can begin to delve deeper into different types of kicks, such as 360s, 540s, or even 720s!
It is also important to practice techniques for controlling your leg during a kick, such as keeping your ankle straight or pointing your toes. This will help you achieve more powerful spins and better control during aerial tricks. Additionally, learning proper landing techniques is key in avoiding injury when learning new tricks involving high-flying kicks. When landing from height, make sure to bend at least one knee so that it absorbs some of the impact force before touching down on both feet simultaneously.
Conclusion
In conclusion, with a little dedication and creativity, anyone can become a master of the art of tricking. It is important to remember that even though it may look difficult and intimidating, as long as you are willing to put in the time and practice, you can learn to do some pretty amazing things. Taking classes from an experienced instructor is always recommended, but plenty of online tutorials and instructional videos are available for those looking to learn independently. Additionally, having friends or family around who can spot you during your training session will help ensure safety during each attempt. With patience and perseverance, any aspiring tricker can experience the joys of executing high-flying kicks in no time at all!
